Surgical lighting systems are used in operating rooms to illuminate a work area (e.g., a surgical site). The surgical lighting systems include one or more lightheads that are typically mounted to a movable support structure. Each lighthead includes a plurality of individual light sources (e.g., LED lighting modules or LED lighting pods), wherein each light source provides a respective light beam. To achieve optimum lighting conditions at the work area, the lighthead must be properly aimed and focused.
A lighthead is aimed by physical moving the lighthead to point the light beams at the work area. The light beams produce a circular light beam pattern (e.g., a 6-12 inch diameter pattern), with the greatest illuminance coming from the center of the light beam pattern. The “boresight” of the lighthead corresponds with the center of the light beam pattern. The illumination of deep cavities at the work area may suffer due to non-optimum aiming of the lighthead, or the center of the light beam pattern may be directed at sterile drapes surrounding a surgical incision rather than the incision itself, thereby resulting in eye fatigue. In existing surgical lighting systems there is no mechanism for precisely indicating to a user (e.g., a surgeon or other medical personnel) where the center of the light beam pattern is pointing, especially when multiple lightheads are being used to illuminate the same work area. With existing surgical lighting systems, users have determined where the center of light beam pattern is pointing by physically relocating the lighthead so that the center of the light beam pattern can be observed away from the work area.
With regard to lighthead focus, the light beams provided by each light source of the lighthead may be focused to converge at a common intersection point (i.e., the focal point) to produce the circular light pattern at the work area, with the greatest illuminance at the center of the light pattern. When all of the light beams of the lighthead are properly focused (i.e., adjusted to the optimum focus distance), the lighthead provides (i) a uniform circular light pattern, (ii) maximized illuminance, and (iii) minimized shadow effects caused by any blockage of a light beam. Existing lighting systems provide adjustable lighthead focus by use of solid state lighting control or by mechanical movement of the lighthead or light sources of the lighthead. However, these lighting systems do not have a mechanism that clearly indicates to the user that the lighthead is set to the optimum focus distance, thereby resulting in sub-optimal lighting conditions at the work area.
Furthermore, lighting systems for illuminating surgical sites are typically capable of a light output as high as 160,000 lux. This level of light output results in high intensity reflection that makes it difficult to determine whether a lighthead is properly aimed and/or optimally focused.
A surgical camera (e.g., a lighthead-mounted camera or a standalone suspension-mounted camera) is typically aimed by a user over a surgical site by watching the image produced by the camera on a monitor located away from the surgical site. This method of aiming the camera is not ideal, since the image has no true reference or orientation, and requires time for the user to adapt to inversion of the image from the positioning reference.
The present invention addresses these and other drawbacks of the prior art by providing an aiming and status indicator system for surgical lightheads and cameras.